Hal Ptor
Medium-sized human of dark complexion, wide facial features, and long braided hair. He worships Sawdorn, the God of the Sea & Storms (as evidenced by the whirlpool holy symbols that he wears). A champion of his order, he has been charged with exploring the wild north in hopes of returning civilization to these lands. Says "my son" or "my child" a lot, even when speaking to adults.
Languages: The language of the Southern Alliance, the ecclesiastical tongue of the Ancient Church, the Common Tongue of the North Lands, and numerous minor languages that might be encountered along the Western Sea (TN roll).
Lore: As an experienced cleric, he has access to many spell effects (it all depends what he prays for at night). Please see D&D (any older edition or retro-clone) for spells. As long as he is at full dice, he may cast up to 3rd level spells [TN12]. At three dice, he may cast up to 2nd level spells [TN9]. At two dice, he can cast first level spells [TN6]. He can only conduct minor rituals (orisons) when reduced to one die [TN3].
- Healing Spells: Healing spells can be used to restore lost cliche dice equal to the level of the spell (assuming the cliche loss is due to wounds or other conditions that might be healed by the spell).
Tools: Mail hauberk, several silver holy symbols, heavy two-handed mace (instead of a shield), ritual supplies/spell components, sextant, sling, bag of sling bullets, vial of holy water, spy-glass.
Other Possessions: 69 gp and 3 sp. Backpack, bedroll, winter blanket, ink, quill, small mirror, waterskin. Adventuring clothing: boots, leather breeches, wool tunic, fur cloak, harness, leather gloves.
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Adventuring Cleric of the Southern Cult of Sawdorn: Being wise, being fairly charismatic, being fairly strong, being civilized, being educated, conducting religious rituals, turning undead, performing miracles (he prays for them nightly... dice lost to pumping cannot be recovered until he prays again), fighting with blunt weapons, wearing heavy armor, using shields, performing first aid (heal no more than 1 die with a TN equal to 5 times the number of dice the cliche is down by); making holy water.
Well-travelled Mariner of the Western Sea: Serving as crew about a a ship, boat, or galley; tying knots; knowing about foreign lands, cultures, and languages; having an acute weather sense; swimming; climbing ropes; having sea-legs; not getting sea-sick; celestial navigation; fishing; spotting things on the horizon.
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CHARACTER GENERATION & WORLD-BUILDING NOTES
CHARACTER GENERATION & WORLD-BUILDING NOTES
Image
I did not come up with this concept completely from scratch. I knew that I wanted to cover some very stereotypical D&D cliches (with room for a few wild cards), but I didn't have anything specific in mind. Unlike Old School D&D, there isn't any way to really do random character generation in Risus. Instead, I fell back on my old standby of using a python script to pick a character image at random. I sorted through my copious collection of fantasy artwork and pre-selected a fair number of works that seemed to evoke a certain campaign atmosphere. Not surprisingly, a great number of these images are from WotC products since they post so much on their website. This particular image (the first of 6 selections) was from the D&D 4e preview books. While I have mixed feeling about the game, I have to say that I really admired some of their initial artistic choices.
The clothing depicted in this image implies a cool climate in the adventuring region while the character's coloration suggests that he hails from the "South". The weapons, armor, and holy symbol implies that this is a cleric of some kind of water god.
Name
I used the Barsoomian name generator from Chris Pound, which may say something about his native culture.
Sawdorn
I borrowed a God of the Sea that I have used in at least three previous campaign worlds (including Dragonspire).
Western Sea
As mariner, I wanted to name a body of water upon which he travelled. Picking the first thing to come to my mind, I said "Western Sea". While he has travelled the lands near the "Western Sea", these lands will be distant from the campaign's starting point. Hal Ptor is venturing deep into lands where the light of civilization has nearly been extinguished.
Southern Alliance
A collection of civilized city-states, only recently emerging from the Dark Ages. Struggling to revive the traditions of a Lost Empire.
Common Tongue of the North Lands
Distantly related to the Southern Tongue, it has splintered in countless dialects. Fortunately, most are still mutually intelligible.
Gear
Tools are assumed as part of the cliche. Otherwise characters will have 3d8x10 gp to spend on other items (prices from the various early D&D or retro-clone sourcebooks).
2 comments:
Hmmm, this gives me an interesting idea. Get a set if images together, let players pick which they want to play but let them create the character based on the image. So gear, cliches, clothing, etc are all based off that image. If it is present in the image then the character is justified in having it. Would be interesting to see the variations that people come up with!
That's a great idea! You could have a one-shot or convention game of Risus (or any other rules-lite system) and hand out images instead of full character sheets. As GM, you could still have a pretty good idea of the characters involved, but the players would get to experience the fun of character building... which can be a hoot. I'm thinking specifically of Spirit of the Century where character generation is an integral part of the game.
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